Vascular blood flow information for a patient can be obtained from computational fluid dynamics simulation based on vascular structure models constructed from 3D medical images such as computed tomography (CT). Flow information can also be directly acquired from actual patients using some medical imaging modality such as magnetic resonance (MR) imaging. In either case, the simulated or acquired data is a 4D vector flow field (3D over time), which is traditionally displayed as animated arrows or other glyph shapes, optionally with color mapping to represent simple derived scalar values such as velocity magnitudes of the flow. Alternatively, the velocity magnitude is visualized as mapped color values on the surface. Examples of such techniques are shown in the blood vessels in FIGS. 1a and 1b. 
These techniques are useful for visualization of general impressions of the flow, but are limited in conveying more information, for example, about the amount of the flow and the speed of the flow turbulence, or about occluded flow pattern within sub-regions. It would be advantageous to have a method to compute and display such additional flow information, especially in the form of quantitative data plots. Such generated plots, which may include, for example, a variety of 2D plots, are easy to understand and more importantly, useful to quantify the additional flow information. Also, such generated plots would allow a user to further select a blood vessel sub-region, or a subset of the overall time, based on the plotted information to further explore finer blood flow patterns of interests.